First Mountain summit

For the first time as a family on May 20th we hiked our backyard mountain - the wonderful Mt. Sanitas. A nice 1255 foot elevation gain on a Sunday afternoon using our new baby-hauling backpack (Jesse carried Jerex, I felt I would be lucky to finish the hike without carrying a large baby on my back.)

Overall, we thought that he would get too tired and fussy to finish - but he surprised us with his hiking spirit and ended up loving it! Despite taking a few naps along the way.

Hiking is tiring work.

Family pic

Jerex bein' all cute and stuff

Sometimes a baby just begs to have his picture taken. Like when he might be sitting in front of a rose bush with rosy red cheeks. Or lounging about in his new jorts. Or bouncing around in his johnny jump up. Or hanging out with his nanny. And ESPECIALLY when wearing neon yellow Babiators!! Either way, I am glad I had a camera handy!

Too cool!

Visitors of the Grandparent Kind

I have a lot of posts to catch up on so better get started! Grandma Brenda, Grandpa Burton, and Great-Grandma Betty came to Colorado for a nice long visit back in early May. It was Gma Betty's first trip to the mountains and we had a great time! Highlight of the weekend was definitely going up to Flagstaff Mountain in Boulder for a scenic picnic lunch. Weather was great the whole weekend and Jerex got lots of quality time with his Missouri grandparents and great gma.

Gpa Burton

Pretty as a postcard at Wonderland Lake

Top of Flagstaff Mt overlooking Boulder

Token Flatirons pic!

Chilling on the rooftop deck

 

Mother's Day!

My first Mother's Day was fabulous! All day long, I kept thinking about how happy I am to be a mom, and how amazing Jerex is, and what a great dad & husband Jesse is, and how did I get so lucky?! It was a great day that started off at 11 AM because I was given the wonderful gift of sleep!!! What more could a new mom want?!  It was a very restful weekend where I could recharge my batteries. Here are pics of me and my little man on my first Mother's Day:

And, here is a pic of me and my mom and my grandma at the top of Flagstaff Mountain in Boulder!

Hope all you moms had a great mother's day this year!

4 Month Checkup

Jerex went to the doctor on May 7th for his 4 month checkup, and all was well! He continued to weigh in and measure in at the 95% for both height and weight! He is getting close to double his birth weight. He never misses a meal, ladies and gents:

4 Month Stats - Heavyweight division

 He had to get vaccinations which were not fun, but he was less fussy this time afterwards, and I asked the doctor ahead of time exactly how much Tylenol to give him so that I didn't have the confusion of converting mg to ml this time with a screaming baby distracting me...  Or rather, call my brother in law who is a high school math teacher to do the conversion for me!

Monday the 7th was a crazy day. My parents and Grandma Betty were in town and they had to leave that morning so Jesse took them to the airport, so it is always sad when people have to leave... and I had an overnight upgrade for work which required me to be up a lot in the night monitoring things going on in India, so I was up from 2:30 AM - on... At one point in the morning before Jerex's doctor appointment, Jesse had just gotten back from the airport and trying to catch up on his work, I was on a conference call with things going haywire with my upgrade, Jerex was crying and inconsolable, Ned had barfed on the carpet, and then Jesse stepped in the barf while trying to walk around calming Jerex. It was a culmination of all things stress and we both just had to laugh hysterically about it! Cat barf + crying baby + work stress + sleep deprivation + conference calls + no nanny (for some reason we had given her the morning off.) = a funny story to tell later on! It was a long day, but everyone can always get through one day :)

Something new we are trying now - Rice Cereal! The doctor ok'd it at our checkup and said that it would be good to start getting him used to eating and so once a day we are trying to start giving him cereal at night to fill him up longer, the thought being - maybe he'll sleep longer if full! (yeah right!) Here are some great pics of him getting his first solid meals:

What is this stuff? I am dubious.

Hmm, I'm going to eat it. This better be organic.

I hate this but I love this spoon, I'll show them!

Get In my belly!

Jerex is on Twitter!

For those of you who did not know - Jerex has been tweeting since in the womb. Yes, it is amazing and don't ask me how he was able to do this. I had no idea iPhones got service inside placentas. Anyways - check out his twitter feed and follow him if you don't already!

Jerex Twitter Feed

 My favorite recent tweet is when he sent out the above picture with the text "breakdance fighting some clown."

hah!

Ned-glected... A tale of a sad cat

Ned the cat has been a big part of the Jones family for going on 6 years. He is a playful, energetic, and loud animal who enjoys drinking running water and napping on laps, eating cream cheese and darting outdoors when we go in and out. He received all sorts of love and attention prior to Jerex being born... However since Jerex has been born, Ned no longer is feeling the love (he isn't the cutest creature in the house anymore). Parent-bots Renae and Jesse no longer have endless hours to sit around and pet Ned. We no longer play fetch with Ned every day, or treat him to some tapioca pudding. He is turning into a spiteful, attention-seeking meow machine that I personally think sheds more now just because he is mad at us. Ned's behavior is really pretty bad now, and Jesse and I are starting to feel fed up with this cat! Any advice is welcome... We are considering starting to let Ned out of the house more so he can roam in the backyard but then again, we have been warned about mountain lions killing house pets in our neighborhood so maybe that isn't such a great idea... Jerex really doesn't mind Ned, but Jesse and I are almost at our wit's end!!

I have heard that house cats act out when babies are born b/c of the attention thing, but always thought that Ned was above that. Guess not! We'll figure out a way to deal with it and in the meantime, will try not to neglect Ned as much. Once Jerex can walk, Ned will get plenty of attention and exercise running away and hiding from an interested little baby boy!

Future Cat chaser

Critters in the Crawlspace!!

It's true - Jerex likes the outdoors:

The problem is - the outdoors also likes him apparently! The past week or two, we've been visited by 2 mangy Boulder raccoons. They shimmy up our gutter to our house and get onto our roof deck. Once up there, they somehow contort themselves into a very small drain pipe and shuffle their way under the deck into a crawl space that is behind Jerex's nursery. I could hear noises in the ceiling and then a few nights ago caught the raccoon duo bickering on the roof deck and then could hear them in the walls. Very past the point in my life where I want mooch roomates - they HAVE TO GO.

 Our landlord got a live trap and we set it up and caught one of them, hopefully will get the other one soon. Jerex is too young for pets!

Growing and changing

So this month we bought another baby-hauling device that we never knew we needed - but really since we live in Boulder directly across from a hiking trail up Mt. Sanitas, if WE don't use something like this - WHO WOULD!!??

Jerex likes it, even though he is slightly too little for it still. Won't be long though!

The past few weeks have been very busy getting back in the swing of things at work for me, and even though we aren't on a rigid "schedule" we are starting to see patterns emerge and trying to stick to routines that work. And then right when we think we have this little turkey all figured out, he completely changes it up - keeps us on our toes that is for sure!  Jerex has been growing and changing by the day. He's now:

laughing a lot more!
grabbing toys with ease
playing in his Johnny Jump up
putting weight on his legs when held up
enjoying books!
STILL not sleeping through the night!

He's a SUPER BABY!!

We weighed him today and he was tipping the scales at around 17 pounds - will get the official weight at the doctor's office May 7th. But wow - almost doubled his birth weight already! He never misses a meal.

The token bath photo:

Just look at that belly!

MMMMM My hands are TASTY!!!

Q1 2012 - a profitable quarter!

Everyone told me after I had a baby that "those first 3 months are the hardest!!" "You just gotta get through those first 3 months!" "Those first 3 months are a doozy!" Well - the 3 months have came and went and I can hardly believe it, and now I have a happy, energetic, smiling 3 month old little boy.  And all the advice-givers were right - it was a rough time but - WE made it and survived! The hardest part is over! Hurrah! Here is Jerex in his new REI sun hat:

Jerex is a growing boy. When he's hungry, he acts like a little spastic wolverine. Today at one point he consumed 7 ounces in a single feeding, which is not quite double what he normally eats, but wow, I can hardly keep up with that!

Last week was my first week back at work. It was difficult but I made it through and was even somewhat productive, and this week is already much easier. My brain in fact does work still, thankfully. It is a matter of getting in a new routine and we'll get the hang of it soon. Since I work from home, it is great to be able to take breaks and walk into the living room and see this smiling and drooly face:

Jerex has been rolling over both ways, grabbing toys, cooing/talking/giggling regularly, and being generally awesome at being a baby! Every day I feel so incredibly blessed!

This year, the Easter Bunny found us, and he wears blue pajamas:

Enjoying Springtime in Colorado, hoping that the 80 degree days stay away for a little while at least!